The most liberal Democrat in the Senate has called a hearing to draw attention to how ObamaCare could hurt millions by pushing patients into a system with a shortage of primary care doctors.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) has argued in support of the Affordable Care Act, but wanted it to go further in establishing universal healthcare.

Tomorrow, the 71-year-old senator’s Subcommittee on Primary Health and Aging will study the “crisis” caused by 57 million people living in areas where they do not have adequate access to primary care due to a shortage of providers.

In announcing the hearing, Sanders said the problem is likely to grow worse because of the growing and aging population and expanded insurance coverage under ObamaCare provisions which will take effect in 2014, just 11 months from now.

“With 30 million newly-insured individuals seeking care, one-quarter of the primary care physician workforce nearing retirement age, and only 7 percent of medical students choosing primary care residencies, it is clear that we are facing a major crisis which must be addressed,” Sanders said.

Bridget Johnson is a veteran journalist whose news articles and opinion columns have run in dozens of news outlets across the globe. Bridget first came to Washington to be online editor at The Hill, where she wrote The World from The Hill column on foreign policy. Previously she was an opinion writer and editorial board member at the Rocky Mountain News and nation/world news columnist at the Los Angeles Daily News.
She is an NPR contributor and has contributed to USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, National Review Online, Politico and more, and has myriad television and radio credits as a commentator. Bridget is Washington Editor for PJ Media.

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1.
dookhh

It seems like the very best way for an impossible scheme to fail is to try to implement it.
Unless they do something quickly, the US mortality rate from simple medical problems is about to skyrocket, I guess it is what you would call ” a consequence of the election”.

Look for Congress to “fix” this by fully reimbursing medical school tuition in return for some number of years of primary care practice with a guaranteed annual salary floor. Kind of like military service.

The problem is that The Narrative around this failure will push even more destructive policies. The simple fact is that health care should be like every other expense in an economy — subject to supply and demand, where people can allocate their resources freely in response to their own desires and needs. Under such a system, routine health care would be readily available at reasonable costs — see http://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?singlepost=3012292 for an example.

Instead, we have seen Federal intervention in healthcare increasingly distort the marketplace to the point where costs and benefits are wildly disconnected….and the government/media “solution” is — more Federal intervention!

If we had the same healthcare law as in 1963, we could have the same sort of healthcare costs as in 1963. Instead, with EMTALA and cost shifting and Medicare and Obamacare, we have a bureaucratic nightmare with escalated and escalating costs.